Fic:Northern Lights (8/9)

[silver_sun]

By the time I got back to my room Nightingale had returned to his. I wasn't sure whether it was avoid what he thought I was going to say or if he was as tired as the rest of us and just wanted to sleep. I thought about going to find out which it was or it was something else, but found wasn't in any mood to argue about Sandy if that was the way the conversation ended up going, so I went to bed with the hope of getting a good few hours in before it was time to get up again.

It wasn't to be as about half past four in the morning my mobile rang. It is a well known fact that people never phone in the early hours of the morning with good news, so I was half asleep and expecting the worst when I managed to get enough coordination to find my mobile and answer the call. "Peter Gr...Sandy, slow down. What is it?"

"It's the Trowies, they came to my house. Trolhoulland is on the Ness of Burgi, doing something, I'm not sure what as they all keep talking at once, but it's something with magic, more than they've seen in a long time."

What did I say, 4am phone calls are never good news. Ever. "Okay," I said switching on the bedside light. "Where are you?" I was hoping the answer was still at home, rather than on my way to deal with it by myself in a well meaning, but likely to get myself incinerated kind of way.

"I'm outside." There was a high pitched chatter of the by now familiar fake-Swedish alike. "I've got Trowies in my car and they are in a hurry to get there. So if you could get down here before they try driving it themselves it would be much appreciated."

"Okay, give me five minutes," I said as I tried to hold the mobile between my shoulder and by ear while attempting to get dressed. "Actually, you'd better make that ten," I added as I knew it would take Nightingale a little longer to get his suit on that it would pulling on jeans and jumper.

Two minutes later and mostly dressed I hurried out of my room and knocked on his door. When I didn't get an answer I tried the handle and found he'd left it unlocked. Now there probably is proper form of etiquette for waking a sleeping wizard who's got the power to explode tanks, but I didn't know what it was so I went with, "Sir, you need to get up."

He murmured something indistinct and rolled over. He had to be worn out, we'd spent most of a very long day on our feet and I doubted he was complete well yet, regardless of how much he told me not to fuss. But I knew we couldn't take on Trolhoulland alone, not if the vestigia that had been left on Sholto was anything to go by. "Sir?" I put a hand on his shoulder. "It's time to go."

"David, stay," Nightingale said still asleep. He reached out and took hold of my hand. "Please."

Okay now this was seriously awkward. "It's me, Peter," I said, not sure if I should try to move my hand away or not.

Nightingale eyes snapped open and he stared at me with what could only be called confusion. It morphed to disappointment and he pulled his hand away like he'd accidentally grabbed something hot. "Peter?" He said looking around. "Why are you in my room?"

"Trolhoulland has started whatever it is he's up to," I said, moving away from his bed, so he had room to get out without standing on my feet. "Sandy is outside with a car full of Trowies. He's ready to go."

"Do we have any information about where Trolhoulland is or whether he had any accomplices?" Nightingale said, motioning for me to turn around while he got dressed.

I did and told him that Trolhoulland was at somewhere called the Ness of Burgi, which was probably a place and that the Trowies knew a lot of magic was being flung about. It didn't take him long to get dressed, and I was kind of jealous that he could go from fast asleep to looking wide awake and smartly dressed in about five minutes flat. Especially as I suspected that I looked I'd just been dragged out of bed.

"Who's David?" I asked as we hurried down the stairs.

"David who? I've worked with a number of Davids over the years," Nightingale replied, nearly missing his step on the stairs. "Why are you asking?"

Definitely rattled and totally aware of who I was asking about. It didn't feel good having figured it out, so I said, "It was just something you said, it probably isn't important."

"Then why ask?" He reached the front door and opened it. "Come along, unless you have any more unimportant questions that you feel you need to ask me?"

"No, sir." And that was that. I knew when I wasn't going to get any answer. I had my suspicions about who it was, and David Mellenby seemed like the most obvious choice. He'd been friends with him, maybe more than that for all I knew, and he'd lost him during the war. All the talk of a magical war had probably brought back a stack of bad memories. No wonder he didn't want to talk about it.

Sandy's car was parked on the other side of the road and as we went over to it I could see the Trowies hopping about in back seat. There were about a dozen of them and I wondered what the occupancy limit should be for them. One per seat belt? or given their size should they be in a rear facing child seat? Which would limit it two of them in the back. I wasn't going to be the one to suggest it, and I suspected that the Trowies were old enough to be classed as adults and didn't come under the child seat law anyway.

Sandy looked relieved as we got in, while the Trowies got even more animated and were nearly bouncing off the walls. Nightingale claimed the Trowie free front passenger seat, so I ended up in the back with all of them.

"Have you called for back up yet?" Nightingale asked before Sandy had a chance to say anything.

"No, I wasn't sure if I should with it being magic," Sandy said, sounding uncertain that he'd done the right thing. "I can call it in now if you want."

"Don't, we need to have the situation under control first. Then I will make the call," he said.

I wasn't going to argue the point even though it wasn't the approach that we usually took in London. Back there we had people who knew what we did, both in the police and in whatever it was that Frank Caffrey and his men officially were, here we had Sandy and that was it. It was going to be hard enough filling out the paperwork without mentioning trolls and magic as it was, without having a load of other officers there as witnesses to it.

The roads were completely deserted at this time of the morning and while Sandy wasn't breaking the speed limit to get us there he was taking the narrow, winding and unlit roads as fast as he safely could. Taking a drive with a car full of tiny, argumentative trolls with no concept of personal space or apparently soap and water was an interesting experience. It was also one, I decided as one of the Trowies climbed over me to reach another that was playing with the car window, that should definitely remain a once in a lifetime thing.

The Ness of Burgi was at the southern most end of Shetland, just down the coast from where we'd been the previous morning at the airport. Unlike the airport it was only accessible on foot so Sandy parked his car at the side of the road and then, with the Trowies leading the way, we headed out across the cliff tops.

It was dark, far darker than I was used to nighttime being. Most people would probably say it was crazy to miss London's orange haze of light pollution, but it would have been handy right now. The thick clouds meant that no moon or stars were visible, so we were reliant on the small torch that Sandy had had in his car.

The Trowies hurried on ahead and I wondered if their cat-like eyes meant they could see well in the dark. It was just as well somebody knew where we were going as there didn't seem to much in the way of a path and I doubted we'd have found our way without them. The ground got rockier the further we went and the sound of the sea louder and ass we rounded the headland a beam of light from the Sumburgh Head lighthouse lit up the cliffs in front of us.

The path narrowed even more dramatically just a few metres ahead of us until it was just a thin strip of land barely three metres wide with a near vertical seventy-five metre drop on either side down onto jagged rocks that were being battered by the seemingly perpetually rough North Sea. I could feel the magic more strongly ahead of us now. The Trowies hadn't been joking when they'd told Sandy it was powerful, and for a second I could imagine that I was back on top of the Skygarden. Which was definitely not the sort of thing that I wanted to be remembering now or any when else for that matter.

"Steady," Sandy said grabbing hold of my shoulder as I nearly missed my step. "You don't want to slip out here. I don't think you'd stand much of a chance if you went in the sea."

The Trowies seemed to be rather more cautious the closer we got and before long it was Sandy leading the way with the tiny trolls bringing up the rear. I could just about see them even without a torch now as the sky wasn't as dark as it had been, an eerie greenish glow lighting up the sky above the Ness of Burgi.

"Is he doing that?" Sandy asked, looking up.

"Only indirectly," Nightingale said, taking a firmer grip on his staff. "The magic is interfering with the electro-magnetic field in the atmosphere above us. That." He gestured upwards. "Is the Aurora Borealis."

"The Northern Lights are made by magic?" Sandy asked looking amazed, as flickers of yellow and pink cross the green. "It's incredible."

"Not usually," Nightingale replied, and I could hear the tension in his voice. "It has been a very long time since I saw such power."

It was pretty obvious he didn't mean the Skygarden and I didn't ask him where. I had my suspicions and I doubted that he wanted Sandy knowing finding out that he'd seen active service in the Second World War. That kind of thing led to difficult questions. The whole Northern Lights thing was pretty cool, but honestly I would have enjoyed it a whole lot more if I hadn't been worrying about just how much magic was being tossed about to effect things that far up in the atmosphere.

In the faint green light we could see that there were ruins ahead of us. A low stone building, the tops of the walls half grown over with grass, blocked the path. At its centre was an archway. Little more than a metre high, I suspected that much of it was buried beneath the ground, rather than it having been built for something the size of Hobbits.

"That's the block house," Sandy said, pointing at it. "An Iron Age fort, there are dozens of them along the coast. There always seems to be some university or another up here digging around them."

Which begged the question why was this one so special? Was it its history? Had Burgi been a powerful Shetlander or should that be Shetlandic wizard? Or was it that its location at the southern most point of the island was somehow significant? Or was it just that the place was such a pain in the arse to get to that he thought he'd avoid any unwanted company by doing whatever he was doing out here?

Through the archway we could see a single figure, light flickering around him. Trolhoulland. Knowing that he was a sea trow and suspecting that this was some kind of claim on territory I'd expected that there would have been a few more of them. There wasn't. Trolhoulland, still wearing the old tweed jacket with leather elbow patches that made him look like a geography teacher, was completely alone inside a circle of cheap tea light candles.

"So what's the plan?" I said hoping that now we were here we'd got one that was bit better than charge at him and hope for the best.

"I think that rather depends on what our small allies are intending to do," Nightingale said as he watched Trolhoulland, presumable trying to gauge just what the hell he was doing. "Have they informed you of anything?" he asked Sandy.

Sandy shook his head and then crouched down to speak to the nearest of the Trowies. "Apparently part of the ancient settlement between the Trowies and the Sea Trows was that they would never again raise arms against each other," Sandy said after a moment. The Trowie said something else and then gave what looked like a shrug. Sandy stood up. "Opinion is divided about what raising arms actually is, but they are pretty sure that there is nothing in the agreement stopping them getting people to fight for them. Which is why they came to me."

"So why exactly are they here?" Nightingale said, sounding like he was about to lose his temper, as one of the darted round his legs, nearly tripping him up.

"They say they won't fight him directly," Sandy translated again, as the Trowie said something and looked rather annoyed about having to repeat itself. "But they will try to stop the magic he is using, as it isn't his to control."

"How do they intend to do that?" Nightingale asked, but our little troll friend had decided that it had had enough to answering questions and had slipped away into the flickering shadows at the edges of the blockhouse.

The Trowie however had decided that it had answered more than enough questions and had legged it back to stand with the rest, looking warily at both us and Trolhoulland. Leaving the Trowies out of the planning actually made things simpler in one way, as in the end it came down to the fact that we were police rather than some secret ops or soldiers, so we ended up walking over to him and announcing our presence rather than shooting first and working out what he'd been doing later.

Some people might have argued that that wasn't a plan at all, but Nightingale had pointed out that shooting a fireball at somebody who was in the middle of constructing a formae as powerful as the one Trolhoulland was doing might result in Shetland losing the last half mile of coastline. So Nightingale went first as neither of us could fault his argument. I could feel him starting to put formae into place, I wasn't totally sure which ones they were, but I felt pretty sure that they were of a level I wouldn't be doing for a few more years yet.

"Gavra Trolhoulland," he said loudly. "I am arresting you for the theft historical artefacts from the Greenwich Antiquarian collection and for the murder of Andrew Sholto. You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say..."

Nightingale stopped as Trolhoulland flung a ball of what looked like shimmering blue fire at him. He raised his hand and the fireball died instantly. "I would not suggest doing that again."

"What are you?" Trolhoulland said, staring at us with eyes that were just too large and shiny to be human.

"A senior officer of Her Majesty's police force and perhaps more pertinent to this discussion Master of the Folly." Nightingale continued to walk forwards. "Now I suggest that you cooperate and start to safely discharge your magic."

"Human things," Trolhoulland said dismissively. "They have no power over me, they have no right in this land. You cannot stop me, all is in motion now. Yes. Yes. All in motion. The land will fall and all will be washed from it." He raised the stolen stones high above his head. "The Trow nation will rise. It will ascend to its rightful place as kings of the north, chasing all before it."

Okay, so much for the idea that we might be able to talk to him in any rational fashion, Trolhoulland had apparently lost it big time. I don't know much as Trows, and until a couple of days ago I didn't even know that they existed, but I generally had a fair good handle on why people did what they did. Lesley being the exception of course. What I did know was when somebody was this into their own delusions you weren't going to listen to you. When it was just an ordinary person you were generally more concerned for their own safet and whether when they came to their sense they might try and sue you, here with enough magic to make the Northern Lights take a detour, I was more worried about us.

Sandy, who had apparently decided that the safest place to be was right next to Nightingale, looked around and said, "What people? Why are there no other sea trows here?"

It was a damn good question and one to which I hoped the answer wasn't armed with something big and point and standing right behind us. I looked round, but couldn't see anyone else. There was no point trying to sense if anybody was doing anything magic nearby, the stuff that Trolhoulland was doing was drowning out anything that might have been background to the site.

"They will come," Trolhoulland said with absolute certainty. He lowered one of his hands and the ground beneath him started to rise up until it was level with the low roof of the block house and he was silhouetted against the weirdly glowing sky. "When they see our world returning they will come from the shadows and the depths, they will return to the world and I will lead them and they will make me their king."

"What do we do now?" I asked as I saw Nightingale's tighten his grip on his staff.

"We stop him," he replied. There was a certainty there that made me feel like we'd half won the fight already. "And we do it before he finishes his spell. He is tapping into the land, drawing energy from it, moving and destabilising it. I believe he intends to sink a portion of the island into the sea."

"But that's crazy," Sandy said, staring at Trolhoulland in horror. "People could die. We've got to stop him."

And the prize for understatement of the day goes to DC Sandy Wilson, I thought. The indignant tone would have been rather fun if the situation hadn't been so serious.

"Quite," Nightingale said, a sharp edge to his voice. "I will admit that I'm not entirely familiar with the methods that he is using, but believe I can prevent him without any untoward effects. Trolhoulland can't move from the circle he has constructed as he's acting as a conduit for the energy." He looked at me, deadly serious. "I should not need to tell you how vitally important that nobody breaks my concentration while I counter him."

I nodded and then said, "What if he throws another fireball at you."

"He won't," Nightingale replied with certainty. "Didn't you feel how the web of formae he'd constructed faltered before? What he is doing is in a far more critical stage now. He cannot change focus now without risking losing control of it all. This does not leave us free of danger. He made have prepared for this and I will not be able to aid you or Sandy until Trolhoulland's magic had been neutralised." He looked around. "I do not know what else he may have brought here, so remain alert."

He walked away from us, stopping when he reached the edge of the candle-lit circle. He nodded at Trolhoulland and then lowered his staff so that the end of it was pressed into the soft ground. Trolhoulland didn't look happy, but he hadn't quite descended into the cackling 'you can't stop me now puny human' kind of villain yet, although that was probably only because all his concentration was on making sure his spells held, rather than coming up with witty comments.

"What should we do?" Sandy said looking at me.

It was a good question, especially as I had no idea what Sandy would be able to do if things started to go wrong. Apart from get the hell out of there that is. I didn't tell him that. Instead I nodded towards the blockhouse. "You cover that side, I'll take the other. If Trolhoulland tries something one of us will see it."

A moment after we got into position, Hjalda who I was sure hadn't been in the car, hurried past Sandy, directing about a dozen or so trowies to take up positions around the edges block house, presumably to prevent Trolhoulland from leaving. Not that it looked like he'd got any plans to, he seemed more than happy where he was making his magical light show.

As magical fights went it wasn't all that interesting to watch, and it was nothing like the battle between Nightingale and Varvara at the farm when he'd come to get me and Lesley. The level of energy was higher, I could feel it crackling across my skin like static electricity and I wondered whether having my phone switched off would be enough to save it.

Nightingale was concentrating on something so spectaularly high level there I wondered if I'd ever be ready to do something like that myself. Even with the extra energy stored in the staff I could see the sweat beading on his forehead.

I was so busy watching Trolhoulland that it wasn't until one of the rocks on the opposite side of the blockhouse house started to move that I realised things weren't going as smoothly as I'd thought. Any hope that it was just a loose stone or two tumbling from where they'd been piled died a very quick death as it uncurled itself and turned into what most people would call a troll. A proper eight foot tall lump of moving rock who would have been totally at home in Discworld or Middle Earth. It made a rumbling noise that was low enough that you felt it rather than heard it, like bass beat in a night club. It turned to look at Nightingale with deep-set glowing ember-like eyes and then began to lumber forwards.

Assuming we were all okay at the end of it I suspected that I was going to get a talking to about keeping my mind on the job. If we were I was quite happy to take it. Not that it was my fault exactly, but I was supposed to be watching out for him and stopping anything from getting through. The problem I currently had was that Nightingale was between me and the troll and throwing formae over his head would be a pretty big distraction, maybe not as much as being hit by a tonne of bad tempered granite, but distracting all the same. And that was assuming that the additional magic zipping past didn't interfere with all the rest that was all but crackling about us. There was no way I could risk it, so I ran like hell trying to get a clear shot.

Sandy was closer and he stared at the troll, fear clear on his face in the flickering candlelight. He glanced at Nightingale, then picked up a stick and executed a move that I could only call bloody brave and incredibly stupid as he got between the troll and Nightingale. For a moment I wondered if maybe he'd lied to us about him not having any magic and he was about to do something amazing. Unfortunately for him the answer was no. The rock troll swung it knobbly arm and caught him a glancing blow. It was probably just as well as it was, because it still had enough force to knock him off his feet and send him flying backwards against the side of the blockhouse.

Whether Trowies were more fond of him than they had seemed or if they'd been waiting for it to be distracted I didn't know, but they charged towards it from where they had been hidden amongst the heaps of stone. I'd got a better angle by now so I threw my goto spell for slowing down things that I really didn't want reaching me, and couple skinny grenades hit it squarely in the chest. It staggered and then turned its attention towards me.

It wasn't exactly the desired effect, but I decided it would have to do. It rumbled at me, beat on its chest with huge, rocky fists and rushed at me. The Trowies had reached it by now and were swarming up it like mini-King Kongs on very rocky Empire State Building. The troll didn't seem to like it one bit and it roared and flailed around trying to dislodge them.

As the last of the Trowies scrambled clear light started to appear in all its joints, followed rapidly by cracks forming across its chest and back. It roared again and the cracks widened. What happened next was mostly a blur. There was a rush of stored magical energy escaping in a way that had become scarily familiar of late and the giant troll seemed to implode and explode at the same time as it folded in on itself and then all its rocks flew outwards, a few smashing into the ground around me. The ground then decided it was going to get in on the act and it shook and rumbled in what I imagined an earthquake would feel like.

Staying on my feet wasn't happening, so I dropped to the ground and hoped that nothing would fall on me and that Shetland wasn't about to sink. It went on for what felt like a good few minutes, although I suspected if I'd had a watch on it would have shown it to be only seconds. Shetland wasn't now at the bottom of the North Sea, reasonably optimistic about how things had gone so I stood up and

Nightingale was on his knees at the edge of the circle, breathing raggedly, his staff pushed into the ground in front of him like it was all that was keeping him from falling over. I took a step towards him, but he waved me away saying , "Find Trolhoulland."

I looked around to see Sandy getting unsteadily to his feet. I couldn't tell how much damage the troll had done, but I hoped the fact that he was alive and mobile meant that it was minimal. There wasn't time to ask him as Trolhoulland, finding that his frankly crazy plan of sinking part of Shetland and turning it into the kingdom of the sea trows had failed, decided to leg it back down the path that lead to the road.

I wasn't sure what I'd actually be able to do if I caught him, but there was no way I was just going to let him escape. So I yelled, "Stop, police!" and then gave chase. Luckily for me Trolhoulland didn't seem to be anywhere near as fast as he'd been on the day he'd given us the slip at Griminsta and I suspected that he'd not got the magic left spare do it. Either that or he didn't want to lose me and I was running into a trap.

Which ever it was the chase didn't last long as shortly after we'd crossed the narrowest part of the route that lead back to the road, Trolhoulland seemed to get that he wasn't going to be able to shake me and turned back to face me. "You have ruined everything!" Trolhoulland shouted at me. "A lifetimes work destroyed and for what?"

"You would have killed thousands," Nightingale said, arriving beside me. He sounded decidedly wheezy after having run after me, and I hoped that Trolhoulland wouldn't make another dash for it as was I was pretty sure he'd not keep up.

"Humans. You number billions, you have spread to the furthest corner of the world and yet you would deny us even a corner."

"I have no quarrel with you or your kind living in this world," Nightingale said slowly moving forwards towards him. "Many races survive side by side with out conflict."

"In secret. In fear of discovery," Trolhoulland spat back at him. "That is less than a life. Better death than such a fate."

"What about the Trowies?" I said, moving round so that Nightingale and me now effectively had him cornered on the cliff top. "This is their land too. Would you have drown them as well?"

"Degenerates, scraping a living in dark, muddy holes on the edge of land that was once our own," Trolhoulland said dismissively. "They are a dying race, I was doing the kindest thing. They chose to hide from the glory of death in battle, choosing instead wither and fade while dreaming of the past."

"There is no glory in war," Nightingale said angry and weary at the same time. "There is no such thing as a good death. Your race if it still exists wants no part of this. If they did they would be here."

"Lies!" Trolhoulland waved his arm in front of himself and a wall of flame shot out towards me and Nightingale.

I managed to get a shield over myself as the fire raced over me. It was hot, like standing by an open oven door, but as long as it held I'd live. Nightingale countered whatever magic the flame had been created with with a wave of his hand and the fire fizzled and died in front of him.

"Leave him be!" Nightingale shouted, raising his staff across himself, ready to combat whatever was about to be thrown at him. "You wish for a death you consider glorious then face me." It would have all been very cinematic if he'd not suddenly been caught by a bout of coughing that nearly doubled him over.

Glory apparently didn't include fighting fair and Trolhoulland seized the moment to use some other magic, not formae as I understood it to pull Nightingale's staff from his hand. A split second later he was lifted high off the ground. Still coughing, he struggled to breathe as he pulled at something unseen around his throat. He hung suspended for a moment, then with a wave of his hand Trolhoulland hurled Nightingale backwards and he disappeared over the cliff.

The flames racing over me faltered and died and I dropped my shield and ran to the edge and looked down. Not the brightest of moves leaving a power crazy troll behind me, but all I could think of was Nightingale. It couldn't be the end, not like this. The eerie, magically induced Northern Lights were starting to fade as the magic dissipated, but there was just enough light for me to see the waves crashing over the rocks below. I tried not to think about drowning statistics for falling from heights or into freezing water or whether Nightingale could actually swim.

"And what are you?" Trolhoulland said moving towards me. "His servant? It doesn't matter, you shall join him."

"I'm his friend," I said getting to my feet, and forcing myself to look away from the white-water crashing against the rocks. Whether it was because Trolhoulland was worn out from all the magic he'd used earlier, if it was because he was less powerful than Faceless or whether it was because I threw everything I had it to making the formae I didn't know. What I did know was that hurling stones at him using the same combination I'd used to lob a chimney at London's least wanted worked. Trolhoulland gave a yell of surprise as about two dozen rocks ranging from about the size of a grape up to a football slammed into him and he fell backwards off the cliff and into the sea.

I had no idea whether I'd hurt him or worse, but it wasn't him I was trying to find as I looked back down over the edge of the cliff. There was nothing but the sight and sound of the sea battering the cliffs and I dropped to my knees. It couldn't end like this, it wasn't right, it wasn't fair. I couldn’t do this on my own, I wasn’t ready to take on half the things we’d faced by myself, not if I want to survive the encounter. I'd been lucky so far, stupidly, ridiculously lucky to walk away with nothing more than bruises and enough nightmare fuel to last a lifetime.

A flicker of light flared into life just above the waves. It solidified into a strong, steady glow of a werelight which was lighting the way of a distant figure fighting their way towards the shore. It was too far away to get a sense of the signare, but I would have known it anywhere. Stopping only to grab his staff from where it had fallen, I wasted no time in running down to where Nightingale would hopefully come ashore. My jeans and boots were soaked through as soon as I got into the freezing, knee deep water, the waves breaking against my legs. It was all worth it as he stumbled forwards, alive and apparently mostly unharmed, and caught hold of my arms, nearly falling against me.

"Rather too bracing at this time of year, don't you think?" Nightingale said, trying to sound unconcerned about having been picked up and flung into the sea and not being even remotely successful. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering as he added, "I really can't recommend...Peter, get down!"

He suddenly let go of my arms and then shoved me backwards into the knee-deep water. I went under for a moment and the cold nearly took my breath away. Spluttering, I sat up and second later a fireball shot over my head, to be blocked by a shield that Nightingale had thrown over us. The flames barely had time to fade before he dropped the shield and his own answering fireball raced off past me. It had taken just a few seconds and I splashed around to see Trolhoulland engulfed in flames, the light from them lighting up the jagged rocks just off shore that he was standing on. He beat at the flames with his hands for a moment and then, with a scream, he toppled back and was lost in the crashing waves.

Nightingale held out a hand to me to try and help me to my feet. The result was however that fell forward on top of me and we both floundered about for a bit, before we managed to somehow drag each other upright again.

I'm not the most demonstrative of people, and there is the whole thing of men don't hug unless they are part of the team who has just won the World Cup or some other major sporting event and even then it should be over as quickly as possible, but having Nightingale alive was better than any trophy as far as I was concerned. So I felt totally justified in wrapping my arms around him and holding on until I was sure he was actually really there.

"Are you hurt?" he asked sounding scarily something close afraid, which made me feel about a million times worse.

I shook my head. The whole adrenaline rush of the fight and the chase seemed to have suddenly vanished and my body informed me that it had had just about enough. Feeling incredibly cold, tired and shivery I put my head against his shoulder and tried not to do anything stupid like fall over or cry.

"Peter?"

Talking wasn't high on my list of things to do, but I couldn't ignore him. I wanted to tell him I was just cold, but apparently my brain had other ideas and I said, "I thought he'd killed..."

"There is a third level formae is very useful in slowing a fall. I really should teach it to you," Nightingale said interrupting me. He had also apparently decided that the one sided hug had gone on long enough and put an arm around me, holding me tight. "I know it isn't easy, but I suggest that you try not allow yourself to dwell tonight's events."

I knew that I would. I knew that he knew that I would, but I nodded anyway, safe in the knowledge that he wouldn't mention it again unless I did first. And that was it, we could have died, but we didn't and now we'd go on like nothing had happened, because neither of us knew how to do anything else. I wasn't sure if that made us heroes or fools. Maybe it was just being human in a world that made sod all sense even at the best of times.

"We need to find Sandy and make the call to Perez," Nightingale said, when I'd not replied or made a move to get out the sea which was still sloshing icily about our ankles.

I nodded again, wondering how Nightingale could still sound so in control despite nearly having drown. Did it come naturally with age or did it really not bother him like other people? Whatever it was it didn't stop him from feeling the cold or from limping as we made our way slowly up the beach. He kept him arm around me as we walked although whether it was for my benefit or his I had no idea. Either way I was grateful that he did, as the wind seemed to cut right through my soaking clothes, my supposedly waterproof jacket not up to the challenge of being dunked in the sea. "What are we going to say?" I said, trying to find something to think about that wasn't freezing or dying.

Nightingale stopped for a moment and looked down the beach to a small boat shed a little way down the coast. Then he sent a not inconsiderable sized fireball down to it where it promptly exploded. "There was boating accident. Fuel can be highly flammable when incorrectly stored. We couldn't save him or recover the stolen objects. I believe that covers it."

I was too cold and tired to summon anything more than a brief bit of concern for whoever had owned the shed, and hoped that their insurance company would pay out for anything that was damaged. Later I thought I might have some reservations about how easy Nightingale found it to falsify evidence, but at that moment I just wanted to get somewhere warm and sleep for week or two.

Sandy had managed to follow us part of the way and was sitting hunched over in the minimal shelter afforded by the remains of an old, ruined cottage. He struggled to his feet as he saw us, his left arm cradled awkwardly with his right. "Did we win?" he asked, voice raw with pain.

"We did," Nightingale said, indicating that he should probably sit down before he fell down. “Which is in no small part down to your prompt actions earlier. I believe I owe you my life.”

"We didn't have a chance without you, I could see that," Sandy said, then groaned and held his arm tighter. "Is it really over?"

"As much as police work ever is," Nightingale said sinking to his knees beside Sandy. "Peter, could you give me a little light?"

Maybe it was so I had something to occupy me and he thought I needed the distraction or maybe he didn't want to try any more magic for a while give the ridiculous amounts he'd be throwing about in the last couple of hours, either way I made a werelight for him and got it float over us.

The light revealed what I'd expected, that none of us were in great shape. Sandy's arm was almost certainly broken and almost certainly had some pretty spectacular bruising from colliding with the blockhouse wall. Nightingale was exhausted, shivering badly and now he was sitting still coughing again. I’d escaped relatively unscathed apart from being wet, cold and slightly bruised from Nightingale landing on top of me. It wasn't the best end to the case that could have happened. Our suspect was dead, we had no real evidence apart from what we had created and we were all a bit battered and bruised, but we were alive and in the end we'd probably all be okay.

Being a copper and more importantly an apprentice wizard means that you do come prepared for such eventualities and my mobile, which had been switched off to avoid being magically fried had survived its brief dip in the sea. So after switching off the werelight, I made the call to a very surprised sounding PC who’d been covering the front desk at Lerwick Central. With that done we tried to get our stories straight while we waited for help to arrive.


On to the last part:
http://the-silver-sun.livejournal.com/244756.html



Notes.
The Ness of Burgi is real location at the southern most end of Shetland. It's been a while since I last visited it, but given that it has been there for the best part of 1800 years, I suspect that that it has not changed to much in the last ten or so.

Nearly at the end now. I know I said no more than eight parts, but it really does need an epilogue/final part type thing to tie it together. I'm working on it now and hopefully I'd have in posted later in the week.